


Make Much of Time

by andloawhatsit



Category: Captain America (Movies), Harold and Maude (1971), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Matchmaking, Paley Park, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:18:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6238453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andloawhatsit/pseuds/andloawhatsit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hearses are driven, guerilla gardening occurs, gentrification is bemoaned, and blind dates are made: A steggy Harold and Maude AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Regular updates to arrive over the week of 13 to 20 March 2016. I've chosen not to use archive warnings, but the rating (G) will not change. If you're concerned about plot details, do check out a summary of Harold and Maude. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy—and thank you for reading! I'm on Tumblr at andloawhatsit.tumblr.com.

"As effortlessly as two raindrops merge, they fell back together on the canopied bed."  
— Colin Higgins, from _Harold and Maude_

The funerals began by accident. Attending them, at least. It was only that one day, he saw a notice in the paper: A man in uniform, born in 1918, father died in the Great War, served himself in the Pacific and died in Brooklyn at the age of 95, predeceased by his wife of 70 years, with his children and grandchildren at his side. It struck Steve with morbid curiosity, because the dead man could have been him, and so he had made his excuses to Natasha, avoiding her latest attempts at fixing him up, then waited until the nurse next door had disappeared down the stairs with her laundry basket and crept out of his own building to make his way back to the place where he was born.

              He hadn’t expected the church to be so full, packed to the rafters with friends and family, but the crush made it easy to melt into the background—To hide in the back pew and cross himself at the appropriate times, murmuring the old phrases and enjoying obscurity. The dead man’s name was Albert Krasinski. After the war, he’d gone to college on the GI Bill, then taught the rest of his working life at a public school in Brooklyn, a building Steve had once walked by every day. Krasinski’s first child, a girl, was nearly four years old by the time he got back, but they got on splendid, by her account, their family filling out with two boys, then another girl. His wife, Nancy, worked in a factory during the war, and kept working afterward until returning GIs edged her out, then raised her family at home. Hearing all this, piecing the Krasinskis’ lives together against the backdrop of his own memories, Steve had held a strange feeling in his stomach for the length of the service. It wasn’t illness or sorrow, but it wasn’t happiness either. It was—He couldn’t think of a word for it. It was a memory he didn’t have of a life that wasn’t his, but what it could have been, if he had been a man like Albert Krasinski instead of himself, angry as a scorched cat and 90 pounds soaking wet. Without the serum, he probably would’ve been six feet under long before he had the chance to settle down, but if he had married Peggy…

              The family served coffee and cake in the foyer afterward, and Steve fell into a long conversation with one of Albert’s sisters, even toying briefly with the idea of telling her they were more or less the same age.

***

The sister, Edna, had been an army nurse, Korean War, and Steve had so enjoyed speaking with her that after that, he minded newspaper notices more carefully.

              One morning over breakfast in a hotel restaurant in upstate New York, Natasha smacked the newspaper out of his hand. “Why are you always reading the obituaries? If you’re going to skip the actual headlines, at least read the comics.”

              “They aren’t obituaries,” said Steve, gathering his paper with beleaguered dignity. He’d read enough by that point to make the distinction. “These are death notices. Obituaries are longer, like essays, or printed eulogies.”

              “To me, that is a sure sign you’ve been reading too many,” said Natasha. She licked cappuccino foam from the back of her spoon. “Read the comics. It’ll put you in a positive frame of mind for the mission.”

              “Hmph,” said Steve.

***

He didn’t always return to New York—he attended several in DC in all manner of denominations—but still something in his heart pulled him to Brooklyn, time and again. It was its own funeral, of sorts: Every time he went, he noticed the differences—the streets, the lights, the shops, the clothes. The new world slowly overwriting the old in his memory.

              In the midst of this, Natasha talked him into another date—Or rather, she talked him into three. Just three, she promised, and then they could re-evaluate. Evening of the first, she came round, approved his pants but vetoed his shirt, then drove him to a downtown coffee-shop. When after five minutes, they still sat in her parked Stingray, she said, “Do you need a pep talk or are you going to get out of the car on your own steam?”

              Steve rolled his eyes and opened the door. He’d just been working up to it.

              “Maybe don’t mention the funerals thing?”

              “She’s going to ask how I spend my time.” He stepped out, but hung back, holding onto the door.

              “Think up a new hobby and say you’re working on that."

              “You want me to lie to her?”

              “Not _lie_ —Proactively engage a new truth.”

              “ _Goodnight_ , Nat.” He swung the door shut, but Natasha rolled down the window to call after him, “No funerals! And also, she used to be married to Clint Barton, but don't worry, everybody’s cool with it and she’s great, _byeee_.”

              “Wait, Nat, wait, what?” Steve fumbled for the door, but Natasha had already driven away.

***

Later, after he said goodnight, Steve texted Natasha. «At least BOBBI appreciates the distinction between a death notice and an OBITUARY.»

              «oh my god steve»

***

At the twelfth funeral, during the homily, when Steve had squashed himself into a folding chair in the back corner next to a drooping rubber plant, he felt something hit the side of his head.

              He rubbed the back of his neck, but knocked his elbow loudly into the wall, smiled apologetically at the people who turned round to glare at him, then resettled himself.

              Then it happened again. A small wad of paper was in his lap. Was some kid whipping spitballs at him? Steve turned just in time for a third projectile to hit him in the eye.

              “ _Shit_ ,” he hissed, then clapped a hand over his mouth. With his eye watering, he shrugged apologetically at the other guests as they turned once again. “I am,” he began, then stopped when he realised he had no explanation. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just, it’s just very—emotional.” A woman in a long-sleeved black dress and with her iron-grey hair in a smooth French twist stared. Steve bit his lip and tried not to look intimidating or recognizable, and when the irritated mourners were distracted by the Prayers of the Faithful, Steve scanned the pews for the culprit.

              But then—

              He’d recognize her anywhere, even now—the shape of her shoulders, the back of her neck, the tilt of her head—never mind her looking straight at him. Her mouth quirked to one side in a teasing smile. She winked.

              “ _Peggy_ ,” he breathed, heart thudding in chest, pulse echoing in his ears. He curled and uncurled his fingers.

              She put her finger to her lips, then pointed to the foyer, and was already moving to the door before Steve could gather his wits to respond, so he crossed himself at the end of the row, then snuck out behind her.

 

“What are you doing here?” Those were the first words he could manage, much to his embarrassment. He had picked the funeral at random out of the newspaper, then set out to spend the weekend in New York, more to dodge Natasha and another one of her set-ups than anything else, and Peggy didn’t even live in New York anymore.

              “Attending Douglas O’Brien’s funeral,” said Peggy, leaning on her cane. “What are you doing?”

              “Um,” said Steve.

              But Peggy smiled, her wartime self looking out at him, and said, “We should leave, now, before somebody recognizes us.” She tugged him, spluttering, into the street and into the bright afternoon sunlight, the damp shine of early spring in New York. “The car’s this way,” she said. “Don’t stand there gaping.” She peered into the window of a blue sedan and gasped with delight, clambering inside while Steve looked over his shoulder, waiting for someone to come after them. “Get _in_ ,” she said.

              He did.

              And as she pulled out of the parking lot, he managed his first coherent thought since recognizing, _dear God_ , the love of his life, _and she was ninety-three_ , and he hated having woken up, he hated it, but— He looked around. Candy wrappers littered the car floor and a recycling bin full of empties—Steve wrinkled his nose, beer bottles—rattled in the back seat. “You stole this car, didn’t you?”

              “It’ll be back here tomorrow in better condition than it is now, and that’s all that counts.” She gave him a small smile as she took a wide left turn. “Well, that and they left the keys in the ignition. But you just looked so miserable, darling, and how could I leave you here perishing in the corner next to a potted plant? It’s what Colleen would have wanted.”

              “Colleen? Who’s Colleen?”

              “Douglas’s sister. We were friends, a long time ago.”

              “I’m sorry you’re missing it, the funeral.”

              “Goodness, darling,” said Peggy. “You’re more important.” She hummed. “Shall we have lunch? You could do with some feeding, I think. I always thought so.”

 

She took him to a rooftop restaurant in Manhattan, where the staff offered “the usual table, Ms. Carter?” Steve helped her to her seat, then sat himself, while Peggy handed the server a business card and asked that the young woman make a call for her.

              “That’s the car taken care of,” she said. “Kate will come round and get it. Much more exciting than a taxi and so much more convenient, though I must admit, I was disappointed not to be able to take a crack at wiring it.”

              Without thinking, Steve said, “15.7,” though he realized with a jolt that their timed competitions—him and Peggy and Howard with Bucky keeping time, since he could already beat them all—were two years gone for him and a lifetime ago for her.

              “I cracked 12.5 at my best,” said Peggy. “Though that’s only a rough estimate, since I had a Black Widow breathing down my neck at the time. Easier to go for the old models, too, these days—save the bother of computer chips and whatnot.”

              “You know Natasha—”

              “Romanoff? Oh no.” Peggy tilted her head, and when their server arrived with a chilled bottle, she waved them on, then accepted a glass on Steve’s behalf as well. “My usual,” she said. “I’ve become a creature of habit in my old age and if anyone tries to stop me—Well, I’ve lived this long.” She giggled. “You never met him—lucky for him, I must say—but still, I wish you could have seen me drink Jack Thompson under the table.” But when the server had gone again, she grew serious and said, “Natasha Romanoff is not the only Black Widow. But let’s not talk business. To be honest, you’re looking a bit shell-shocked.”

              “I wasn’t expecting to see you,” he said, truthfully, other conversation having left his head at the slam of the sedan door.

              “Nor I, you,” said Peggy, “so I’m blustering, a bit.” She sipped her wine. Her hand shook and Steve didn’t think it was age, not entirely. He blushed, then pulled himself together and reached out with his own hand to place it over hers. She sighed and stilled. “Did I frighten you, Steve?”

              “You always frightened me,” he said, truthfully again.

              She laughed.

              “In a good way, I mean.”

              “My poor darling.” She stroked her thumb over his. “You telephone me, but you always hang up.”

              He jerked back, startled.

              “It rings once, maybe twice,” said Peggy. “But when I get to the phone, it’s nothing but silence.”

              He bit his lip. He hadn’t been able to let the call connect; it had been hard enough to dial.

              “I only meant,” said Peggy, softly. “I know it was you—being a spy and all, it was easy to figure out—and I would have telephoned you, darling, only I didn’t think that would be fair. And Nicholas said you ought to have your space.”

              “He has _no right,_ ” said Steve, suddenly fierce, thinking of two long, empty years—Aliens, Nat’s blind dates, Howard’s ridiculous son. He thought suddenly, and with irritation, that Nick probably was right—right to try to let him act for himself.

              Peggy finished off her glass. “I wouldn’t have listened to him, if I thought he was wrong. Trust that he knows what he’s doing. You’re very young.”

              “Don’t tell me that,” said Steve. His words were thick in his mouth. “Not you, of all people, please.” Not Peggy, so that this became another thing he’d missed, too sick to finish school, too small to join the army, gone for seventy years. It caught up with him, then—the fact that there, in the back pew of that church, was the first time he’d set eyes on Peggy Carter since she kissed him goodbye from the back of another stolen car, and Bucky was still dead, and Peggy got married, Peggy got _widowed_ , and everything had gone without needing him at all. He put his face in his hands.

              “Drink your wine,” said Peggy.

              He knocked it back.

              “ _Appreciate it_ —It’s from Dernier’s family’s vineyard and this is the only place in the city you can find it.”

              “Did you follow me to that funeral?”

              She shook her head. “I really did go for Colleen’s sake.” She reached across the table, mirroring Steve’s movement of a few moments before, and squeezed his hand. “Now order some food, darling, and you’re going to tell me how Howard’s idiot-genius son and his lovely girlfriend are doing, and then we’re going to make some plans.”

              “Plans?” Steve wiped his cheek with his spare hand, grateful that Peggy had ignored his outburst, the tangled messiness at the heart of his new life.

              “I think,” she said, and closed her menu, “that I’ll stay in New York awhile. Friends to see and things to do, and there’s something in particular I’d like to speak with you about.”


	2. Chapter 2

After lunch, Peggy made another call, and Steve helped her from her chair, then to the elevator, and wondered if she leaned more heavily on his arm than she when they left the church. He’d never met somebody so old, leastways someone who wasn’t confined to bed, but Peggy was spry and sparkling, even if she walked more slowly than just a few hours before. 

              “I’ll have Kate take me home,” she said. “She’s a lovely girl, doing some work for me for the summer. Part of my team, as it were—Kate calls them my girl squad. You’ll like her. She’ll take you back to yours, and you’ll know where to find me tomorrow.”

              “Tomorrow?” Steve opened the car before the driver had stepped out, then held out his arm to steady Peggy as she slid into the backseat. He ducked around the other side to climb in himself, and caught her answer.

              “Nine a.m. sharp.” She patted his knee. “Don’t you dare be late.” To the driver, she added, “To Ms. Martinelli’s, please, Kate.”

             

Kate drove them to a brownstone laden with overflowing window boxes and when she stopped the car, Steve jumped out to be the first round Peggy’s side.

              “How brave you were today, Steve,” she said, as they walked arm-in-arm to the front door, Kate waiting at the kerb.

              Steve smelled flowers and exhaust, Peggy’s hand was cool on his elbow, and he made no reply.

              “How brave you are every day.”

              He blushed again and began to refute her, but she silenced him with a single look. He thought, suddenly, of when she’d caught Private Lorraine kissing him. The woman had smelled of French cigarettes and perfume, something glamorous and saccharine, and he had liked her because she was funny and because she took him seriously, but he hadn’t wanted her. Not like that.

              “This building,” said Peggy, “is still standing because of you, not to mention the rest of the city.”

              “I helped, maybe.”

              She pulled a small key from her handbag. “You’ll have to meet Angie tomorrow, I’m afraid, as she still gives master-classes every other Thursday, but that’s alright. Nine o’clock sharp, remember.”

              “‘Gather ye rosebuds,’” Steve quoted glumly.

              “Hush, you,” she said, a gentle admonishment. “There’s plenty of time.”

 

When both he and Kate were back in the car, Kate coughed, then pushed her large purple sunglasses, up her forehead. She coughed, pointedly, then said, all in a rush, “AreyouSteveRogers?”  She coughed again. “I mean, um.”

              “That’s what it says on the birth certificate,” he said. 

              She swerved into the next lane. “Sorry, I just—I mean—Working for Ms. Carter is the g.d. dream, right? So I wanted to know, but I’m not going to fuck it up, is all I’m saying.”

              It took Steve a moment to realise that the nervous young woman was promising to keep his confidence, which—once he figured it out—he found rather endearing. “Peg’s an excellent judge of character,” he said, trying to be polite. “I’m not concerned at all—Miss?”

              “Bishop,” she said. “Call me Kate, though.”

              “Alright,” he said. “Call me Steve.”

***

Natasha had left him a voicemail—said she knew he was in New York, but how convenient was that, because she’d lined him up the perfect date: Someone just getting back into the swing of things, easy-going, fun, wasn’t looking for anything serious but a real sweetheart—And, she’d added with particular emphasis, he had a very cute butt.

              When Steve called her back, she picked up before the second ring. “Seven-thirty tonight at the Italian place two blocks down from your apartment, which I know you’re still leasing, by the way. I already made you two a reservation.”

              He frowned. “It’s not another one of our friend’s exes, is it?”

              “Aw, c’mon,” said Natasha. “You liked Bobbi, didn’t you?”

              “Bobbi is great, but—”

              “Don’t think of this as a date—Think of this as the opportunity for both of you to practice for dates.”

              Any other day, Steve would have been irritated by her assumption that he’d do it, but after the day he’d had, he couldn’t face the prospect of staying home alone. For the past two years, he’d thought seeing Peggy would have left him raw as a bare wire, but he’d built it up in mind so much that the reality had been a relief and he had a flood of energy to burn away, too vibrant to simmer behind his apartment door. After Natasha texted «:D :D corner table he’ll wear purple», he showered and dressed. If she wanted him to date, by God, he was going to date the pants off this guy.

              Maybe literally.

              Probably not.

 

But when he walked into the restaurant’s warm-lit glow, tugging at the hem of his pullover, and looked to the corner table and found a short, blond man in a purple t-shirt, all he could do was roll his eyes, throw himself into the chair across the way, and say, “Goddammit, Natasha.”

              Clint Barton’s eyes widened, then he puffed his cheeks and blew a heavy breath. “For fuck’s sake, Nat.”

              Both of their phones buzzed.

              “If either of you leaves,” said Clint, reading aloud.

              “I’ll kick both your asses,” Steve finished.

              “She said both of us needed practice,” said Clint, resigned to his fate. “I ordered wine, but I don’t know wine, so I ordered the cheap one.”

              “God, it’s not like I know,” said Steve. “So long as it’s gentler than the paint-stripper Buck and I used to drink, I’m happy. Also, she said you had a nice butt.”

              “Would you deny that?”

              “Not at all,” said Steve. “I just thought you’d like to know Nat thinks so. She also tried to set me up with your ex-wife.”

              “Ah, Bobbi,” Clint sighed, wistful, before giving his head a brisk shake. “It’s possible that Nat’s strategy is to drive us to date for ourselves just so she’ll stop setting us up.”

              Steve shrugged in agreement, and they ordered, ate, and had a pretty nice time, Clint telling stories about the people in his building and quizzing Steve as though they’d never met:

              Favourite book? He said _The Fountain_ , by Charles Langbridge Morgan, not because it was his favourite (it wasn’t), but because it was the first title that came to mind and the one his mother had been reading before she died, and because Clint was unlikely to know it. It had been popular that year and Steve had turned his nose up at it, until Bucky had smacked him in the back of the head and told him to “quit being a snob, you little radical, and go read to your mother.” His actual favourite, these days, was _A Single Man_ , because it was dire and romantic and suited his moods. Bucky had turned up Isherwood’s earlier stuff during the war and made Steve read _Goodbye to Berlin_ aloud on quiet nights and shared watches until the book fell apart. He didn’t know why he hadn’t told Clint the truth.

              Childhood pets? None, though he had used to feed stray cats behind his building. Clint said he always knew Steve was a soft touch.

              Job? He shrugged and said, “soldier,” melancholy, until he had to laugh at Clint’s exaggerated cooing for “a man in uniform.”

              He had fun in spite of himself, which he suspected to have been Natasha’s plan all along.

 

“Y’know,” said Clint over cheesecake, after they’d both paid their bills, “what’d really put our Nat in a spin?” He was the picture of innocence, beaming, with a fleck of chocolate on his bottom lip.

              Steve arched an eyebrow and said, “ _On va voir._ ” Clint grinned, dropped cash for the tip, and then Steve took him home and they made out on his sofa for a while, Steve wasn’t sure how long, only that it was warm and comfortable, and Clint made his body glow. When they finally said goodnight, Steve watched from the window as Clint hailed a taxi, and feeling silly, blew the other man a kiss. Clint shot his hand out—To catch it, Steve realised, and grinned. Clint made a show of tucking the kiss into his pocket and bowed, then hopped into the cab when the driver—impatient, no doubt—honked.

***

He straightened the curtains. He was angry, not angry; mellowed by kisses, keyed up by Clint’s hands on him. He wanted to drive his bike too fast, blow something up, start a fight, jump on a grenade, hit something, get hit. He wanted Bucky to shout at him, Peggy to shoot at him, someone to want him for more than evening, as nice as his evening had been.

              «how was it?»

              Even with no way to read tone in a text, still Steve thought Natasha sounded hesitant. Just to see what she’d do, he replied, «I’m thinking of trading the bike in»

              «your motorcycle??»

              «yes»

              «but the date??»

              «Maybe a car.» He enjoyed teasing her. «Something sleek. Maybe a hearse. »

              «Steven!!! The date!!»

              He put his phone down and went to bed.

***

At 9:10 a.m. on Friday morning, Angie Martinelli poured three cups of coffee, put the pot on a metal trivet welded into an unusual— _vaginal_ , Steve realised, feeling his eyes widen—design, then took the chair beside Peggy. “I’m going to suggest something you’ve already thought of, I’m sure,” she said, “but don’t you think it might be time to bring in the girls?”

         _The girls_ _._ Steve’s hearing caught on the phrase. Peggy had said something like before, over lunch.  _Kate calls them my girl squad._

              “I’ve been resisting,” said Peggy, with a sigh. She curled her hands around her cup. “It’s not that I doubt a single one of them, or think any of them incapable—Hope’s been doing such fine work, for instance, Angie, you’d be so pleased, even in deep cover working for that wanker, and Kate’s superb. But.”

              “If you go to them,” said Steve, even while not knowing who “they” were and having no hope of following Peggy and Angie’s conversation, “if you ask for help, it means there’s a problem, and one you can’t solve on your own.”

              “She’s not _alone_ ,” said Angie. Her hair fell in styled wisps around her face, dyed a very light blonde as though she’d only begun to grey, and her hazel eyes were locked on his. “Good lord, English,” she said. “He really is something else altogether, isn’t he?”

              He blushed and to deflect, said, “What’s the big secret?”

              Peggy put her cup down. “I’ve not told anyone at SHIELD. It’s a great irony, even if I’m not prepared to appreciate it, that I spent decades building my reputation, building that organization, only to find they stopped returning my calls once I started walking with a cane. I’ve still a few contacts, of course, but they’re to be judiciously used. And of course, there is some benefit to being underestimated, as we three know very well.”

              “Just start crying,” said Angie, “and men do not know which way is up.”

              Steve felt a grin tugging at his face.

              “I see you smiling, Steve. You know I’m right.”

              “It all comes back to Colleen,” said Peggy, continuing her narrative. “Or rather, myself and Colleen. We shared a room not long after I moved to New York. Civilian, worked in a factory, and one night, an assassin looking for me shot her in the head.”

              “That wasn’t—” said Angie, but Peggy cut her off with an impatient wave.

              “I had to abandon the room, abandon her,” said Peggy. “No one knew I was there, but I felt responsible for her. She had no family except a younger brother over in New Jersey. He was still in school and she sent him most of her salary.”

              Sparks fired in Steve’s mind. “And that was Douglas?”

              “Just so.”

              “Peek Frean?” Angie held out a plate of cookies and Steve politely selected one, then two when she shook the plate at him, while Peggy continued.

              “He was exceptionally bright,” she said, “and by the time he’d finished college, Howard and I were running SHIELD, and I recruited him.”

              “Did he know about Colleen?” Steve imagined Peggy in the late 40s, tramping around the city, making her mark—saving the world. To his surprise, he found no clench of sadness in himself—only happiness to think of Peggy making her way through all the places he had loved.

              “Goodness, no,” said Peggy. She bit into a jam-filled cookie and brushed crumbs from her blouse. “I didn’t even recruit the boy directly. Just kept an eye on him. And frankly, that should have been the last of it. I had more than enough on my plate.” She scratched her nose. “But he turned up again in 1962, a junior analyst during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember, I was reviewing the President’s briefing materials and saw his name. Within a year, he was running our field office in Dallas.” Her smile was rueful. “At the time, I was irritated more that the position had gone to a 27-year-old man with nothing but desk experience, rather than the past second-in-command, a more senior and far more experienced woman, regardless of any guilt I still felt about Colleen. But I was worried about discrediting my position by directly intervening on her behalf, so I turned away. I forgot him again. She bit her lip. “I oughtn’t to have done that.”

              “I trust everything you’ve done,” said Steve. “But what does any of this have to do with the funeral, or with SHIELD today?”

              “I thought I was very good at my job.”

              Angie _tsked_ loudly, straightened her cardigan, and folded her arms across her chest.

              “Or rather,” said Peggy, with a nod to her friend, “I was very good at my job.”

              “Thank you,” said Angie.

              “But the trouble with managing so many threads is losing sight of the tapestry. Douglas O’Brien was very bright, as I’ve said, but so was everyone SHIELD recruited. There was no reason for him to be remarkable, except that he so often seemed to materialize in the shadow of remarkable things: the Missile Crisis, Kennedy’s death, Black Monday in 1987. His signature requisitioned the laboratory supplies used during the SHIELD investigation in the Starks’ deaths. But there was no reason to notice, because there was no reason to notice Douglas—who had no living family, by then—or to connect him to me, or me to Colleen. Only Edwin Jarvis knew Colleen and only I knew about her brother.”

              “He was a spy, then? For who? The Russians?”

              “It’s worse than that, I think.” Peggy looked at the table, but then lifted her head once more to face her truths. “I fear there’s something _inside_ SHIELD. I fear there always _has been_.”

              “That can’t be,” said Steve, firm in his convictions. “I don’t always agree with SHIELD, I don’t always agree with Fury, but—”

              “That’s just it,” said Angie, and she bit into another cookie. “It can’t be, but it is.”

              Steve shivered. He felt torn and twisted, and speaking with Angie and Peggy had an uncanniness—like speaking with a grandmother and the girls he and Bucky once went dancing with at the same time. “Why now?” His coffee had gone cold. “Why are the pieces coming together now? If all this started at the end of the war—God, Peggy, it’s been 70 years.”

              “I’ve caught glimpses of it,” said Peggy. “Whatever _it_ is, this terrible _thing_ : Separated agents who were a bad influence on each other, sent the ones who went too far to Murmansk on year-long surveillance missions, compromised—such compromises—for information, all to get on top of it, and I’ve done my best, I don’t regret a thing, I do believe I’ve done more good than bad. But I think, now, that I was never on top of it.”

              Angie said, “What is one person supposed to do?”

              Peggy said, “More.”

              Steve remembered the wrack of asthma and understood just how she felt.

              She continued, “But to answer your question more directly, you remember I said Douglas was unremarkable? No living family of record? When he was still a student, after Colleen was killed, I monitored his bank account.” She shrugged. “Just to keep an eye on him. I had assumed he closed his account back in Tenafly when he moved to take his first SHIELD job.”

              “But?”

              “But,” said Peggy, “his bank in Tenafly shut down in 2008. It took years for lawyers to sort out the paperwork, insurance, outstanding claims, and all that. Everything was such a horrible muddle, that crisis of greed, a tragedy. And in that bank’s particular muddle, they didn’t send Douglas’s paperwork to Douglas, but to me. Or rather, to a drop-box I set up years ago, and had forgotten about. I thanked them, under an alias, of course, then covered my tracks and sat back to wonder how an orphan from Jersey who spent his life in obscure middle management survived 2008 with millions.”

              “Then,” said Angie, fondly, “she started digging.”

              Steve scratched his nose. “How did you get involved, An—er, Ms. Martinelli?”

              Angie rolled her eyes. “Definitely Angie, dear boy, and English here has been dragging me into trouble for the better part of my life.

              “You do carry on,” said Peggy, pinking, and the love in her face when she looked at Angie was so much that Steve felt a twinge of jealousy. “Well, it turned out that the best way to protect Angie from anything like what had happened to Colleen was to leave her, or to tell her the truth. And I couldn’t leave her.”

              Angie refilled their cups. “I don’t typically get involved where SHIELD’s concerned, but the odd time an actress with attitude’s been useful. What can you do when your country needs you?”

              “Tell me about it,” said Steve.

              “We couldn’t talk to anyone at SHIELD about this,” said Peggy. “You understand.”

              “What about Fury?”

              “I do not doubt Nicholas’s loyalties, absolutely not,” said Peggy. “Leave him to me.” She smiled. “It was a coincidence to run into you at that funeral, Steve. Only I don’t believe in coincidence. It startled me ever so, to think we’d stumbled upon the same thing, but now that I’ve found you—Will you help me?”

              “To the end of the world,” said Steve, with the same conviction that threw him out of airplanes.

              “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Angie. She ate another cookie.

 

When Steve left the brownstone, his body hummed with excitement—The intrigue, Peggy’s confidence, the notion of something wrong within SHIELD. He didn’t want it to be true, didn’t want to be right, but still he glowed at the prospect that seventy years on ice hadn’t dulled his instincts.


	3. Chapter 3

He woke the next morning to a telephone call from Peggy, who announced that she was sending Kate to collect him. Groggy, he struggled to collect his thoughts. “Did you get a break?”

              “A break?”

              “In the case.”

              “Goodness, no,” said Peggy. “We won’t crack that overnight. No, I’ve got a surprise for you, so jump to, will you?”

              “Yes, ma’am,” said Steve, who rubbed the sleep from his eyes before rolling out out of bed, then rifled through the laundry on his floor for clean, or mostly clean, clothes. He folded out _The Global Record_ , a national newspaper that had been around since he was a child, while he hurriedly downed a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee, but where he would have normally, of late, flipped to the death notices, he paused. He quirked his mouth and thought of Peggy, then of Natasha, and turned to the comics. He didn’t recognize any of the names and hadn’t come to appreciate their humour, yet, but was interested in their styles, their lines and brushwork, the way the artists drew faces. One called _Octagon_ drew his eye, its characters sketched in thick strokes and one of them called Douglas. He shook his head. The world was very strange: Think of one little thing—a name, even— and it cropped up all over.

***

Kate drove him to an odd little café in Brooklyn—Peggy was already waiting, she said—and before she pulled away, rolled down her window. Again, she pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and said, “Hey, can I ask you a question? It’s only mildly impertinent and even then, only because Natasha Romanoff is a force of nature.”

              Intrigued, Steve said, “Shoot.” He folded his arms across his chest. “And later you can explain how you know Nat.”

              “How was it with Clint the other night?”

              Steve frowned and said, coolly, “That’s more than mildly impertinent.”

              Kate had the decency to blush. “He’s my friend—Barton, I mean. I worry about him. And Nat worries about both of you.”

              “It’s a conspiracy,” said Steve, shaking his head, even though his flare of anger was already settling. He’d had women match-making for him all his life and even they weren’t half as committed as Bucky had been, since Bucky had been one of the few to know to broaden the dating pool. “But it was good, it was fine—We’re friends.”

              “Thanks,” said Kate. She chewed her lip, still looking embarrassed. “But I meant what I said before, ‘kay? I always keep Ms. Carter’s business private, and that means yours too.”

              “Aw, get out of here,” said Steve, blushing and refusing to say he was grateful.

              Inside the cafe, it looked like the mess at SRC headquarters outside Naples: long plywood tables lined with rough benches filled the space, while small wooden tables and stools ringed the outside. It wasn’t very busy, dotted only with a few patrons sipping from plain ceramic mugs and others—

              “Are they painting?” Steve wasn’t sure why he whispered, only that the odd and dirty little room had the feel of a library, that quiet public sacredness. When he looked closer, he saw that they were: What he had taken for dirt was paint, splattered across the tables and floor, people washed hands and brushes at a row of sinks along the back wall, and a few had even set up easels. A familiar figure sat in the corner, sketching, his shoulders hunched as he bent over his work. Steve stared, narrowing his eyes.

              “Here’s your cappuccino, Nick,” said a server, lowering a wide mug to the man’s table. Nick Fury looked up, caught Steve’s eye, and gave a small nod of greeting, like he was not surprised at all.

              Peggy squeezed Steve’s hand. “Nicholas showed me this place years ago. It’s a kind of public studio—For people who can’t necessarily afford studio supplies or supplies of their own, or who’d like to meet others in their trade, or study. Not to mention the food and drink—I think the borough runs on caffeine—and well, I thought you’d appreciate this.” Still holding his hand, she tugged him toward the back. The wall was jammed with framed and unframed pictures: Charcoal, watercolour, oil, sketches, landscapes, still-life, portraits, crayon—all manner of things—but Peggy pointed to one at the centre, and Steve squinted, and his heart jumped. In a black frame rested a pencil sketch of Coney Island—the Cyclone—with three initials in the bottom left corner: _S.G.R._

              “They could fund the studio for a decade a least on what they could get for that sketch at auction,” said Peggy. “But they won’t sell and hardly anyone knows they have it. I didn’t, until Nick showed me. This place has been here since the 50s. It’s a bit of an institution, these days, but don’t worry”—she dropped her voice—“I don’t think anyone will recognize you, and I hope it’s alright, darling, but I thought we might sit and work a while.” She drew him, still stunned, toward an empty table. “As I recall, you promised me a portrait some time ago.”

              He had, during a stolen afternoon in London when Peggy had driven him out to Mentmore, spending her connections to show him the portraits hidden there for the duration of the war. He said, “I couldn’t do justice—”

              “Of course you could,” said Peggy, patting his hand. “Now go and pick out your supplies. I’ve already settled our fees.”

 

Nick joined them, after a time, and they worked together, Peggy drawing stories from the both of them as she shared her own—Steve and the flagpole, Nick’s own days in basic; Nick’s grandfather,  Steve’s mum on the picket line; Angie and Peggy out in California. “The parties Howard threw,” said Peggy. “Crikey O’Reilly.” Her mouth quirked at the corner. “I kissed Dorothy Lamour under a mistletoe, the first Christmas I spent out west.”

***

The next week, after Steve had made his way to Angie’s and rung the bell, and they were waiting in the warm sun and heavy spring for Kate to come round to pick them up, he held out a bouquet—baby’s breath, daffodils, sunflowers—and held his breath.

              Peggy gasped with delight and brought the flowers close to her face.

              “The florist was, um, a bit mad at me,” said Steve. “Wouldn’t take her advice. She thought I was just picking them at random.”

              “Were you?”

              Kate pulled up to the kerb, and Peggy and Steve climbed in.

              “Just what I thought you’d like,” said Steve, and clipped his belt, “even if she said they don’t go well together.”

              “I like them very much.” Peggy leaned forward. “Kate, dear, will you drop us at 3 East 53rd Street?”

              “Where are we going?”

              “You’ll see.”

***

It was a tiny oasis, a waterfall at the back dulling the noise of traffic.

              “A pocket park, I think they call it,” said Peggy, after Steve had helped her to a table. She coughed, then rubbed her chest, waving Steve’s concern away. “Isn’t it lovely? Somewhere green to have your lunch or meet a friend. Reminds me of London. So many places I would have liked to show you.”

              “I’m sorry,” he said, biting his lip.

              “Don’t be, darling—What could it do for us? We’ve done our best, haven’t we?”

              Steve shrugged. “I wanted to, want to, but sometimes I’m not sure. And wherever Douglas O’Brien leads us…” He trailed off, distracted from his melancholy by the sight of Peggy scooping holes in the dirt of a nearby planter. “What are you doing?” She plucked a sunflower from her bouquet, then propped it up in the dirt.

              “They make me happy, Steve—I want everybody to enjoy them, while they can. Help me?”

              He leaned forward, digging his fingers in the soil, feeling grit beneath his nails. He chose a pair of daffodils, then piled a mound around them.

              “Perfect!” Peggy dug another hole, her fingers brushing against his. “Try another?”

              He did. “Natasha keeps setting me up on dates,” he said hurriedly, like a confession. He thought about Clint.

              Peggy tilted her head to the side, tucking a sprig of baby’s breath into the planter. “Is that something you’d like her to keep doing?”

              “I really don’t know.” He sighed. “I kissed.” He swallowed heavily. “I kissed a man the other night. And—” It was absurd, how much he blushed. “And it’s not that it didn’t mean anything, but it didn’t mean—” He rubbed his face and got dirt in his eye. “You mean the most to me.”

              “Plant this sunflower, darling,” said Peggy, and handed it to him stem-first.

 

Their fingers smeared with dirt, they sat back and admired their work. Peggy rested her hand on Steve’s knee. She had a dark smudge across her cheek and Steve, overcome, leaned forward to kiss it, gently.

              She said, “Can I tell you something very maudlin, darling? You must promise not to laugh.”

              Steve nodded. “Promise.”

              Peggy said, “This place, it’s called Paley Park.”

              He nodded again.

              She leaned forward to return his kiss. “This is where the Stork Club used to stand.”

***

“Hullo, Jasper,” said Steve. In the basement gym of the Triskelion, the one used by admin and the low-level staffers, he was hanging upside down by his knees from the metal bar the interns used for chin-up competitions and all the blood was rushing to his head.

              “Um, hi, um, Cap—Steve.” Jasper fumbled a greeting, his head tilted to one side as he stared at Steve, making no point of hiding his confusion. He’d come into the darkened gym, flicked the light-switch, then screeched with little dignity at finding himself not alone. “Are you—I thought something had—Are you alright?”

              “Fine,” said Steve, nonchalant, though his head had begun to ache. “Why do you ask?”

              “Why—You. Um.” Jasper blinked.

              “How many places have you been, Jasper?”

              “What?”

              “How many countries?” Steve thought back: America, England, Italy, Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland. “I’ve got at least seven. Borders on the Western Front were a little fuzzy. Wait, eight, I forgot Belgium. Everybody always forgets Belgium.” In fact, the Howlies had forgotten Belgium due to being drunk for almost the entirety of their—admittedly brief—stay, after they found, stole, and promptly consumed a hidden cache of German beer. Though Steve had okayed the debauchery—their mission was done, they were deep in the forest, and it was practically a moral responsibility to steal German goods, he had refrained from drinking. He had done this out of a sense of duty, not yet having realized he couldn’t get drunk, and as the night progressed, he—and Morita, who, after losing a series of coin-tosses, had joined him in sobriety—had continued to refrain, because even with nothing but trees for company, the Howlies under the influence required close and careful supervision. Bucky had tried to sweet talk an oak twice as big around as his own self.

              “Fifty-seven,” said Jasper quickly, like he knew exactly how many and often liked to work it into conversation.

              “I don’t think,” said Steve, exaggeratedly morose, “I could even name fifty-seven countries.” He was still hanging upside down.

              Jasper stared as though Steve had sprouted a second head and said, “fifty-eight if I could cross off Mauritius next month, but I don’t think shore leave’s on the menu.”

              “Mission?”

              “More like babysitting, but yeah. Look, Ca—Um. What are you doing?”

              “What do you mean?” Steve was straight-faced, then kicked out his legs and flipped round, landing on his feet. The rush of blood made him woozy, Jasper’s face orbited by dark splotches in his vision, and he bent over again, hands on his knees, to get his balance. “Just thinking,” he said.

              “You alright, C—Rogers? You’re getting out? Hanging out with friends?”

              “Oh, yeah,” said Steve, enjoying provoking his colleagues with increasingly odd behaviour. “I’m fine.”

***

Waiting for Peggy at the studio-café, Steve flipped half-heartedly through _The Global Record,_ unable to focus on more than a few sentences. His hearted thudded, he tapped his foot impatiently and felt hardly like himself, his past self—The Steve Rogers who had sat in the back of a taxi with one of the few people he’d ever met who didn’t look right through him. Scanning the comics, his gaze fell on Octagon again. Unlike the others, with recurring characters but one-off scripts, it seemed to demand a more-regular readership. Even being as out-of-touch as he was, Steve could tell that the jokes, if they were indeed jokes, didn’t make sense in the context of a single strip. One figure seemed to stare out from the panel—He had a terrible face.

              “What’s new in the funnies?”

              Steve started and looked up.

              Peggy leaned her cane against the table and sat down.

              He shrugged. “Natasha said I ought to read the comics more. I think it was more a comment on my general demeanour than my reading, but this one I just don’t get.” He pointed out the strip. “You ever read _Octagon_?”

              She frowned. “That one’s been around for years—Heaven knows why, I never met a soul that liked it. Though I don’t know if that’s an indicator of quality, given the success of a cat who eats lasagna, but I—” She broke off and narrowed her gaze. “That’s odd.”

              “What?”

              “Do you know anything about this comic, the plot?”

              Steve shook his head. “That’s what I mean. It doesn’t make much sense to me, but I—”

              “Do you know who these characters are? George? Anderson?” She pointed to a speech bubble, the terrible figure that had stared out at Steve.

              He shook his head again.

              “It sounds foolish,” said Peggy, slowly, “but—a man named George Anderson, he was an accountant for SHIELD for years, but he died very recently; he was as old as we are, Steve.”

              Steve whistled. “Another strip, Peggy—I thought it was strange, but I didn’t say anything—It referenced a character called Douglas.”

              She closed her eyes. Her hand, flat on the table, shook slightly, and Steve covered it with his. She said, firm and certain, unwavering, “I want you to keep on with the portrait right now. Can you do that? I need to think.”

              “Alright,” said Steve. He gathered the pastels he’d collected from the general supply. His own hands shook. “Alright.” He closed his own eyes, focused on his breaths, in and out, and the thought of Peggy, clear in his mind and right before his eyes. He knew exactly how he wanted to draw her.

***

Back at Angie’s, they waded through stacks of newsprint, the women spreading _Octagon_ strips flat on the dining room table while Steve clicked through digital archives.

              “This is unbelievable,” said Angie. “It can’t be. Comic strips?”

              “But think about it,” said Peggy, holding one scrap of newsprint close to her nose. “These people, they take great pride, great pleasure, in operating in plain sight. To code themselves through comics—” She clenched her fist. “They’re laughing at us. They’ve been mocking us for years.”

              “We’ll get them,” said Steve, that old fire lighting in his belly. “We will.”


	4. Chapter 4

There had been too much material for just the three of them, and in lieu of calling in more help than Kate, Peggy resignedly insisted that they focus on comics in the six months preceding Douglas O’Brien’s death. She also called in a few chits, collecting data on the other names sprinkled throughout Octagon’s panels: O’Brien and Anderson, Peter Whittaker, John Farrow, Jacob Veech.

              “They’re nobodies,” she said, tugging off her glasses and tossing them to the tabletop. “No apparent connection to each other, but all lifelong members of SHIELD, and all dead within the last two years.”

              “Murder rap?” Angie pulled a face. “Could it be?”

              Peggy shook her head. “Our generation, and it does seem every time I turn around”—she turned in Steve’s direction and raised an eyebrow—“I’ve got another funeral to attend. It’s less a consistent thread of connection and more—”

              “It’s a tribute,” said Steve. “Look at this. _Octagon_ ’s a daily strip, and the one that references Douglas ran three days before the funeral. It’s the same for Whittaker—I remember because his funeral was the same day Nat and I got back from Dubai and the office was empty. Everyone had gone.” He swallowed heavily. “So say they were all associated with this—organization, and that _Octagon_ tracks their funerals. Is is _only_ a tribute, or are there other messages?”

              “What kind of messages?” Peggy rifled through a pile of newsprint. “Did you find something?”

              He handed her that day’s strip. In it, Anderson passed a flashlight and a wad of bills to another character. “Passing the torch?”

              “Tenuous at best,” said Angie.

              Standing in the doorway, Kate looked up from her phone. “Anderson’s memorial is three days from now. We should go. You and me, Ms. Martinelli.”

              “Absolutely not,” said Peggy, just as Steve said, “no way,” but Angie overruled them both.

***

Dressed in a red Henley and grey trousers, Steve sat at his kitchen table biting his nails and watching the clock. He and Peggy had protested—“I’m a spy, for god’s sake” and “I’m not sending a teenager in my place”—but to no avail. Angie had insisted they were too recognizable and it was time to stop pushing their luck, and the former had left in a car service dressed head-to-toe in black, while the latter set out on her own. That left Peggy to sip lemon tea and with great resentment, nurse a burgeoning cold, and Steve to bite his nails at home, ready hours in advance for the third and final date in his agreement with Natasha and wishing he could be anywhere but. It was half past seven and he was due at an upscale bar of Natasha’s choosing in thirty minutes, but he didn’t want to leave before Kate and Angie checked in. He’d bitten his nails to nothing, replaying in his mind the events that had brought them there, until the phone rang and he sprung to his feet; he hated sitting on the sidelines.

              It was Kate. “Meet us downstairs.”

              “What happened? Are you okay?”        

              “Downstairs,” she repeated. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

              Steve charged down the stairs and flung open his building’s outside door to find Kate leaning nonchalantly against against a long black car, her large round sunglasses pushed up on her head.

              “Good news,” said Kate. “Angie turned the waterworks on, which frankly she deserves an Oscar for, amazing, this weeping elderly woman, and we copied a flash drive stashed in the condolence card basket that I think you’re going to find very interesting. Bad news, I had to put a hearse rental on Daddy’s credit card.”

              Steve gaped.

              “Well, get in,” said Kate, bumping her sunglasses back into place. “Don’t want to be late for your hot date, do you? Romanoff’d kill me.”

***

Natasha and Sif were sipping cocktails on the patio when Kate and Steve pulled up. Natasha put her cosmopolitan down, then picked it up again, then put it down again. “Steven Grant Rogers,” she said. “I cannot believe you. This was your last date. I set you up on a literally other-worldly date and you—” She lost her words. She gestured toward the hearse.

              Sif clapped her hands in delight. “Tonight, we ride!”

***

Peggy straightened a pair of wire-framed reading glasses on her nose and spread her notes in front of her. “Alright. Given the information we’ve drawn from the Octagon archives, what they’ve been arrogant enough to hint at, and the drive that Angie and Kate copied, these people have been bouncing money all over for months. It was Anderson’s accounting, and the last went through coded as a charitable donation at his funeral home, and seems to be some sort of payment.”

              Kate picked up the thread. “And matching their payment schedule with the SHIELD mission calendar, thanks Steve, there’s seven active missions within the appropriate window.”

              Peggy sighed. “For whatever the bloody hell it is they’re plotting.”

              “What if it’s off-record?” Angie plucked another Peek Frean—she seemed to have an endless supply—from the plate at the centre of the table. “The mission, I mean.”

              “Doesn’t fit the pattern,” said Peggy. “These people, this organization, whatever it is—They operate in plain sight. They’re proud of that.”

              “What are the seven missions?”

              Peggy listed them: extraction of a deep-cover agent in northern Canada (Angie was skeptical; Steve told her not to underestimate the Arctic), long-term surveillance of the headquarters of the Sweden New Democrats, a study tour of recent innovations in helicarrier technology, an international conference on threat assessment, rumours of super-soldier serum experimentation at MIT, contract negotiations with aeronautical weapons engineering firm that had slunk in to fill the gap left by Stark Industries’ divestment, and a routine satellite launch through SHIELD marine.

***

Two weeks later, Steve clipped the most recent Sunday Octagon. It was full-colour and sprawled over half a page, the smudged figure staring out once more with block-print speech proclaiming, “It’s an honour to serve.” Just as he put the paper down and was about to call Peggy, to see if she’d like to go to the studio and talk about the recent strip, he changed his mind. He dialled Natasha.

              “No more dates,” she said, when she picked up. “I’m regrouping. I’m rethinking my strategy.

              “Forget that. Why did you tell me to read the comics?”

              “Steve, I—“ She broke off, then restarted. “What do you mean?”

              “Romanoff, you told me I ought to read the comics. Instead of the death notices.” He swallowed past a blockage in his throat. “Why did you do that? Why the comics?” While he knew Natasha did not always tell the truth, she had never lied to him, not outright. She wouldn’t start now, he was certain.

              “I want to see you smile more,” she said.

              “Stop it,” said Steve. “Just stop. Tell me the truth.”

              “I always tell the truth,” said Natasha. Her voice was brittle; she was offended. “I just don’t tell the whole truth.”

              “What does _Octagon_ have to do with this?”

              “You couldn’t make it eas—”

              “I don’t have time—”

              “Shut up and listen,” she said. “It’s the National Cartoonist Society awards next week.”

              “Forget your dates, Natasha, for god’s sake!”

              “Not a date, a job.” Her words came out in a rush. “It’s my lead. I’ll give you my tickets, is what I’m saying. We’re on the same side.”

              “Why didn’t you tell me?” Steve spoke through his own facade. “Don’t you trust me?”

              “Could say the same to you. Hints and codes and half-truths—That's the world I live in, Steve.”

              “Time for you to move, then.”

              “Again, could say the same. Let go of that Brooklyn apartment, come back to DC and stay there. At least stop living with one foot in the past.”

              Steve stiffened and refused to respond.

              “Too on-the-nose?”

              Still, he was silent.

              “Missions are easy,” said Natasha. “People aren’t. I’ve seen pastel on your fingers.

              “I’m gonna ask her to marry me.” He hadn’t told anyone that and certainly not Peggy. He didn’t know why he’d said it out loud.

              “Steve, you can’t—”

              “I’m not talking about this with you,” said Steve, cutting her off. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say; he was right.

***

“I’ve got a lead,” he told Angie and Peggy over the phone. “Peg, you got a nice gown stashed somewhere?”

              “If she doesn’t,” said Angie. “I’ll fix her up.”

***

Steve and Peggy attended the NCS awards in white tie, having successfully argued that it would be busy enough for them to hide and both of them playing up a rural silliness, a grandmother treating her would-be artist grandson.

              “This is weird,” said Steve, meaning their cover. “I don’t like it.”

              “What’s that, dear?” Peggy cupped her hand behind her ear and squinted at him, clearly enjoying teasing him. “Granny can’t hear you.”

              “Ugh,” said Steve.

              Peggy, still smiling gently, said with sudden seriousness, “Octagon is receiving a life-time achievement award tonight. That strip, it gives me chills. They’re on top of the world.” She sighed. “From that, not to mention what we’ve found about Douglas and the others, they’re building up to something. Something big. They’ve been rubbing my nose in it, only I don’t know what it is.” Her voice was tight with frustration.

              Steve’s phone buzzed, but when he pulled it out to silence it, a text from Kate shone on the screen. “Kate traced the money’s final destination,” he, under his breath as the lights dimmed. He read her message aloud. “‘A shell company registered at 1435 Elmhurst Drive. Do you know who lives at 1437?’”

              Peggy sucked in a breath. “They’re setting—”

              “—Nick up,” Steve finished. “I’ve been there. His mother made me pancakes, and I—Wait, what’s Jasper doing here?

              Sitwell, well-dressed and with his hair slicked back, walked toward the stage, beaming, and took the microphone. “As a lifelong reader, ever since I was old enough to steal the funnies from my dad’s newspaper, tonight it is absolutely my privilege, my honour, to present the _Octagon_ team with the Society’s lifetime achievement award for 2014.” He paused a moment, then looked up. He seemed to be staring into a camera, looking for something, or someone, that only a select few knew about. Some private joke. He grinned, showing his teeth. “Over the years, Octagon has transported us beyond the realms of our experience. Mere mortals at the kitchen table we may be, but as readers, we became gods of our own small realms.”

              Steve shivered. Sitwell had ice at his core. He sounded—He sounded like—

              “We weren’t bound to earth or to the ordinary. Through these pages, we transcended: Our imaginations, our bodies, new continents—Mu, Atlantis, Lumeria.

              Steve curled his fingers, clutching his pant-leg. _Fifty-eight if I could cross off Mauritius._

              “All figments of imagination, but what imagination,” said Sitwell. “What vision.”

              Steve realized, as the room erupted in applause, what the man’s words stirred in his memory. Sitwell sounded like Johann Schmidt.

 

At their first opportunity, they slipped from their seats and into the lobby. Steve’s stomach roiled—What could it be, this wretched thing, whatever it was, if it could make a man speak that way? That part of the past could stay dead—He was more than content to lose it, more than content to lose all of it again, if everything that Hydra could bring out in a human being could stay buried.

              But he stuck to the plan. “This was reconnaissance, Peg, and we reconnoitred, so let’s get the hell out of here.”

              “It’s Hydra.” Peggy clutched his wrist. Her nails dug into his skin. “God _dammit_.”

              “The seven missions,” said Steve. He thought of talking with Jasper in the SHIELD weight room. _Hanging out with friends._  He thought of the empty office after Whittaker died. “I know which one we have to focus on.”

              “After five minutes of prattle from that pup?” She loosened her grip, breathing deep, wrestling her anger.

              Steve leaned down to kiss the top of of her head, to hold her against himself.  “The SHIELD marine vessel? It’s called the Lumerian Star. Routine satellite launches, a nothing mission off the Mauritian coast, except that they’re sending a field officer—For no apparent reason. Guess who?”

              Peggy cocked her head toward the auditorium. “Well, let’s get out of here before he sees us.”


	5. Chapter 5

He didn’t think that life could go on ordinarily. That he could know the things he knew, learn what he learned, fear what he feared, and see others going about their lives: Men and women at the corner bodegas, kids out clubbing, cabs whizzing through the street, shouts and shoves and the smell of booze. Rather than call Kate, who wasn’t expecting them until the end of the evening, they flagged the first taxi they saw and headed for Steve’s apartment. Once there, they sat on the steps and watched the people go by. Steve willed time to stop. He had to find a way onto that ship. That ship was the key—If he didn’t drop the thread, he could figure it out. He had to.

              But he was tired of what he had to do, when all he wanted to do was to finish Peggy’s portrait, to plant flowers with her in Angie’s boxes and in the planters of Paley Park, to hear her speak and watch her move. Sixty-eight years missed and he had to go and waste another two in fear and misery—Another two without her, because he couldn’t bear to pick up the phone. He scrubbed his face and tugged his bowtie loose, letting it hang around his neck.

              A car drew up to the kerb in front of him and he shifted automatically to fighting stance.

              But no villain stepped out—Only Kate, who rolled down the window and said, “No rush.”

              “You’re frightened,” said Peggy, narrowing her eyes. She rose to stand beside him.

              “All the damn time,” said Steve. Thunder rippled through the air and rain began to pelt them, sudden spring rain, the sky splitting overtop them. He shucked his jacket and draped it over Peggy’s shoulders.

              She turned her face to the sky and let the water run her cheeks.

              “I used to love the rain,” said Steve. “Bucky’d be furious with me, always carrying on how I was going to catch my death.”

              Peggy laughed. “Proper mother hen—He was always looking out for you, wasn’t he?”

              “I wish you could have known him better,” said Steve. “I wish a lot of things.”

              “Good,” said Peggy. “Wishing is good—In the best cases, it drives us onward. Laughing, crying, screaming, loving—Living. Don’t look at me like that, I’m old, I’m allowed some cliché.”

              Rain soaked through Steve’s shirt and ran down the back of his neck; it slicked Peggy’s hair against her face and made them both shiver. “We should go inside,” he said. “Or, if you have to go—”

              “Enjoy it,” said Peggy. “You only live once.”

              “You’re my whole life, Margaret Carter,” said Steve, and kissed her mouth.

              When they separated, she said, “You have your whole life ahead of you, and I—I hate that there are things I can’t do. I wanted to be there tonight, at your side, in the field—To be in the field, to be useful, that’s all I have ever wanted. I think, no, I know that I did a pretty damn good job, but I always want more.”

              He kissed her again, softly, and held her against his chest. “I’ll give you everything you want.” She was shivering, still, and he shifted, and had just said, “We really should get inside,” when he felt her go limp in his arms.

***

Steve sat in the hospital waiting room with his head in his hands.

              He didn’t notice that a doctor had taken the empty chair beside him until she tugged on his sleeve. “Sir? You were with Ms. Carter? You brought her in?”

              “Yes, Kate and I,” said Steve. “We thought it would be faster than an ambulance.”

              “What’s your relation to the patient?”

              “Excuse me?”

              “Your relation to the patient, sir,” the doctor repeated. “Son? Grandson?”

              “I’m not her family,” said Steve, rubbing his jaw. “I don’t know how to reach them. I’m her—I’m a friend.”

              “And your name?”

              “Steven.” He rubbed his jaw again, then gave his mother’s maiden name. “Steven Melia.”

              “Well, Mr. Melia, unfortunately I’m limited in what I can tell you, since you’re not in her immediate family, but I can say that Ms. Carter is resting and comfortable.”

              Kate held his hand when the doctor went away.

             

Steve had no idea how to reach Peggy’s niece, or even her name, and knew her to be the only living member of Peggy’s immediate family in near enough proximity. He could think of no one to call, except—

              He telephoned Angie, collect, from a payphone in the hospital lobby, because both his and Kate’s cellphones had died.

              “It was raining,” he said, when she answered, her greeting weighted with sleep. “We got wet, it was cold, she fainted.”

              “Steve?”

              “I’m at the hospital.”

              “With Peggy? What happened?”

              “I told you,” said Steve. “It was raining, we got wet, but we figured it out.” He heard metal against metal—her sliding back her curtains.

              “You were out in that? It’s torrential.”

              “You think I don’t know that?”  Steve was snappish, even though he was scared and he knew Angie was scared, too, and that there was no one else who could help him right now. “Angie, please help me—They won’t tell me anything and they won’t let me see her.” She was silent until Steve thought the call had disconnected, and he realised how much he had feared her admonishment.

              “‘Endure, my heart,” she said, gently “a worse thing even than this didst thou once endure.’”

              “Said Odysseus arriving home to find Penelope under siege,” said Steve. “If you tell me I am very young, Angie, I think I will lose my mind.”

              “Promise me that when you hang up the phone, you’ll have a drink of water and you’ll wait quietly. I’ll call her niece.”

              “Thank you,” said Steve. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

              “Don’t apologise, kid. I’m glad you called. I’ll be there myself as soon as I can.”

 

Angie called the niece, who must have called the hospital, because Steve was soon beckoned forward to the reception desk and passed a telephone handset.

              “Mr. Melia?”

              Steve winces. “Rogers, it’s Rogers.”

              “Rogers?” Her voice pitches up. “Steven Grant? This is Sharon Carter. What the hell are you doing with my aunt?”

              “We were walking,” said Steve, half-lying and he knew it. “We got caught in the rain.”

              “I didn’t even know she was in contact with you.”

              “She’s a sunflower,” he said, nonsensical even to himself, thinking of flowers in the park, of sprouting in the concrete. “Please let me—Please tell them I can see her.”

              “What do you mean, ‘sunflower?’”

              “Please,” said Steve.

              Sharon exhales heavily. “Put the nurse back on.”

 

Angie came to the hospital to collect him, took him back to his apartment to shower and change, and then they returned together, just in time for the morning’s visiting hours.

              Peggy was sitting up in bed. “You must promise not to pity me,” she said, when he walked in. “Not one bit, you understand?”

              Angie patted his shoulder and announced that she was going on the hunt for decent coffee, and Steve said, “Now I know how Bucky felt. God, Peggy, I was scared.”

              “There’s nothing in this world to be scared of, Steve, if you do right.” She sighed. “I can go home this afternoon, at least. Hospitals are such a bother.”

              He sat in the chair beside her bed, explained what he and Natasha had learned, and made a promise. “I’ll get onto that ship somehow,” he said. “I’ll figure this out—We’ll figure this out, I promise.”

              “I know you will, my darling,” said Peggy. “And you’ll promise to be careful, so careful, won’t you?”

              Steve nodded.

              “Never fall again, I couldn’t bear it.”

              He closed his eyes, then opened them again. Wrapped his hands around one of hers as he sank to his knees, resting his chin on the bed.

              “And no throwing yourself out of airplanes,” she said.

              “Mmhmm,” said Steve, and smiled, because he knew she didn’t believe him.

              “Things matter so much more when you know a person’s name,” she said, softly. “The decisions I’ve made, the sacrifices, the compromises. I couldn’t have done it if I knew their names. So I made a point of it, not knowing.”

              “Braver than me,” said Steve. He stroked her knee. “I’ve got to go to DC,” he said. “Talk to Nick about the money, and following the _Star._  But I don’t want to—”

              “Steven, you’ve got to.”

              “Tomorrow,” he said. “After you get settled at home.”

***

A week later, Steve returned to his DC apartment and found his phone blinking with messages. “This is Sharon Carter,” said the voicemail, once he got it playing. “Look, Captain, I—I think you should come into the hospital, please, and—Back in the city, I mean. The hospital knows you’re coming. Look—Just get there.”

***

When he checked in at reception, he was told to wait, and soon, the doctor from before came to greet him.

              “Mr. Melia,” she said, wryly; clearly she had recognized him, or been told.

              Steve shrugged.

              But the doctor bit her lip and her expression softened, and Steve knew that look like the back of his hand. His stomach flipped.

              “Ms. Carter was released from hospital last week, as you know,” she said.

              Steve nodded.

              “A few days ago, she called her GP, reporting flu-like symptoms and a persistent cough.”

              “Jesus Christ,” said Steve, who knew what that meant. He slumped back in his chair.

              “She was insistent that she didn’t want to worry you, but it is time—”

              Steve couldn’t hear over the rushing in his ears; he thought he might vomit. Pneumonia, fuck. What good was living in the future if they couldn’t fix this? “But you can treat it, you have to.”

              “We can and we are,” said the doctor. “We’ve been doing everything we can, but it’s important, now, to consider what other steps we need to take.”

              “No,” said Steve.

              She sat beside him and put her hand on his arm. “Mr. Melia,” she said, maintaining his fiction, “it is impossible for me to fully understood the personal circumstances of any patient, much less one with your unique experiences, but medicine is my area of expertise.” She put her hand up to his face, gently turned him toward her, and Steve did not resist. “And it is impossible, impossible, to ‘catch’ pneumonia from standing in the rain, or for pneumonia to develop overnight. Most likely, a bacterial infection had already begun and the elderly are particularly sus—”

              Steve shook his head. “No, that can’t, I can’t—”

              “It’s not your fault,” she said. “It’s not anyone’s fault, and both myself and this hospital are utterly committed both to your and Ms. Carter’s privacy, so please do not concern yourself with that. As her doctor, and considering both her wishes and her best interests, I would urge you to go and see her. Her niece has already. Can you do that?”

              Steve nodded. He felt very, very young.

              The doctor shook his hand. “The nurse will let you know when you can head up.”

***

While pacing the waiting room, Steve found that an old woman, seated in the corner of the room, beneath the droning television, stared at him; when he caught her gaze, she didn’t break it, and it made him petulant. “Can I help you?” he said, snappish.

              “Yes,” she said. She sounded Midwestern, but like she was faking it. She sounded like Natasha, when Steve had first met her, hiding her accent. “Sit down, kid—you’re making me nervous.”

              Steve frowned.

              The woman patted the seat beside her.  “You have a new father look,” she said.

              He gave a harsh laugh. “Far from it, ma’am.”

              Her face softened. “I see I misspoke,” she said. “I often do—Put my foot in it, I mean.” She held out her hand. “Dorothy.”

              “Steve,” said Steve, and shook it.

              “I’m visiting an old friend,” said Dorothy. She gestured to her lap, where sat a single rose. “It’s mine,” she said. “From my little greenhouse. Not as nice as it would be in the summer proper, but time and tide and all that.”

              “All that?”

              “I drove in this morning with a whole bouquet, but this one”—she gestured to the single bloom—was crushed on the way, so I pulled it out. I love my roses, but there’s not enough time, never enough time. If only it were summer.” She sighed. “But people will go on and die when they die.”

              Steve started.

              “Oh, your face, child!” She gave him a gentle smile, half pity and half—something else. “I don’t like it either, but I’ve always found the world to be an awfully cruel place.” She tilted her head, looking almost whimsical. Steve found her strange, and yet he didn’t want to leave. “But then again,” she added, “I’ve been surprised on that score just enough to make it worth my while, this strange life.” She pulled a tissue from her sleeve, then wiped her nose; Steve caught a glimpse of something on her wrists, old scars that caught his attention.

              “Just look at you,” said Dorothy, reverent. “It’s no wonder—”

              “Mr. Melia?” The nurse leaned over her counter to call to him. “You can head up, now. The floor nurse knows you’re coming.”

              That chased all thought and polite convention from his mind. _Peggy_. _Peggy Peggy Peggy_. As he walked toward to the elevator, Dorothy’s thin voice followed him and he didn’t realize until the doors slid shut behind him that she had said, “Goodbye, Captain.”

              He remembered where he had seen wrists marked like hers before: beneath Natasha’s sleeves.

              He remembered Peggy’s gentle correction over their first lunch, something else she knew and he did not: _Natasha Romanoff is not the only Black Widow._

As soon as the elevator doors opened again, Steve broke into a sprint, dodging the floor nurse who called crossly after him; he ignored her, then crashed into Peggy’s room, fearing the worst.

 

But Peggy was sitting up in bed, a tall vase of roses on the bedside table, and Angie beside her, the two of them mid-smile at some shared secret. “Goodness, darling,” she said, looking up, her voice low and rough, pained. “Where’s the fire?”

              “I was,” Steve began. His heart thumped in his chest. “I was worried something had happened. There was this woman, downstairs, and she—”

              “Oh, you met Dottie, I see.” Peggy started to say something else, but fell into a coughing fit, and Steve poured her a glass of water before sinking into a nearby chair. She cleared her throat. “Don’t mind Dottie, she’s—Well, it’s difficult to explain. She means well.”

              Steve sat at Peggy’s bedside as he had the week before, across from Angie, and he hated himself for once again failing to realize that he had been living on borrowed time.

              “Everybody does, my darling,” said Peggy. “That’s the point.”

              “You should have been resting,” said Steve. “If you were sick, you shouldn’t have— I shouldn’t have let you—” He wanted to crawl into the bed to lie beside her, but it was too small and so was she; he’d hurt her. He clutched at her hand. He wanted to lie beside her.

              “And 70 years ago, Steve, when—” Peggy coughed, then continued. ”When Bucky told you to stop lying on your enlistment forms, did you listen?”

              “That’s dif—”

              “No, it’s not. Neither you nor I were made for sitting on the sidelines.”

              He said, “Peggy, you can’t die, I love you.”

              He looked up; she looked back. He and Angie held her hands. She said, “Steve, that’s wonderful—Now go and love some more.”

***

He gave up his New York apartment soon after, and returned to DC for good—Or for the foreseeable, at least. Shy of bugs, of spies, of records—of being known by anyone, really—he destroyed his and Peggy’s notes, and counted down to the launch of the Lumerian Star. His last chance to find the truth. His last chance to make it count, everything they’d been through. Everything they’d lost. Peggy’s funeral, he decided, sitting in the pews and loving her, was his last.  It was time to make much of time. He promised Angie to stay in touch, and did. She gave him tickets to Broadway shows, which he in turn shared with Natasha, who adored them. He compartmentalized. Prioritized. Spring blew on and he hung Peggy’s portrait in his apartment.

              And then—

 

On mission day, zero hour, he woke, checked his phone, ignored Natasha’s second suggestion that he ask out Kristen from Statistics, and hauled himself out into the early-morning darkness. Nervous and eager, he intended to run off his jitters.

              _Steve, that’s wonderful._

              And for the first time since he took up the route, there was someone else on the path. Who else would be interested in jogging at the crack of dawn in the city? Everybody seemed to exercise inside these days. He drew up behind the other runner, a slim and muscular man in a grey sweatshirt.

              _Now go and love some more._

              Steve called out into the sunrise. “On your left.”


End file.
